apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I don't know your price range but i'm REALLY happy with my vestafrost, its around 1k on home depot . com. 24"x24"x84" dimensions, really quiet and super efficeient. The vestafrost does not have a frost free freezer, but its extremely simple to defrost and only needs to be done every year or so.
Its also a freezer bottom model if that appeals and has a wine rack in the very top of the fridge which is really handy.

Maria,

I'm not familiar with the Northland model-is it a commercial model? Does it have a freezer?

And which Liebherr model are you looking at?

Liebherr has both built-in and free-standing models that can be incorporated into cabinetry to appear built in.

My Liebherr CS1650 is free-standing and 30" wide. At 30" it seems to be just big enough for a couple or a couple with perhaps a baby. 18" is pretty narrow. The model above appears to be larger than 18".

Wow, that's a tight space. I'm a little puzzled with the left side of the kitchen. Is the corner next to the stove and oven going to be open counter space? The vent is to the right of the cooker. And is the wall-oven going to be below the cooktop?

does it have a freezer too?

I wasn't happy with the design of the Liebherr fridge/freezer (open door and then plastic drawers to pull out).

o.k.

quick search on Northland reveals a couple of potential diffs between its models and Liebherr.

1. Seems like Northland's models are all built-in. Not sure if that's an issue or not.

2. Looks like Northland has steel interiors available--similar to commercial refers.

3. Looks like the Northland model's fridge/freezer model has the freezer on top.

I guess it would be easier to compare and contrast with model numbers.

okay, I'm looking at your kitchen again. wow, is it tight!

as much as I love a dw, do you really have space for it? why not run your oven, sink, fridge along the 6'6" wall with narrow floor to ceiling cabinets where oven is now?

See if Consumer Reports has done a review of these refrigerators. Since your space is limited, you may find refrigerator/freezer drawers a better solution.

We have the Liebherr (30 inch wide) for a family of four and have no problems with having enough space for food except when we buy ice cream cakes the freezer gets tight. We had to get the Liebherr b/c of depth issues. Love the Liebherr.

By the way, there are under the sink dishwashers (though they limit the depth of the sink) which may save you some valuable undercounter storage.

Consumer Reports never reviews the high end stuff. I can't speak to the Northland as I'm not familiar with it. I have a 24" Liebherr & absolutely love it. It is the best refrigerator I've ever had & the compliments from visitors are endless. The height more than makes up for the smaller width & it is plenty big enough to work like a traditional family frig.

A couple of comments on your layout:

Open shelves above the stove (even with a range hood, which you don't mention) will be very hard to keep clean - I envision atomized olive oil stuck to everything. I love open shelves, I've had them in several kitchens, always by the stove, never over.

That dead space next to the drawers...what's there? They have some pretty great corner super-susan things these days, you might do some research on that. That space just seems wasted.

As for the fridge, the extra 6 inches may not be ultimately useful if it's too high or the interior configuration doesn't take advantage of it. I think it might be a good exercise to write down what's in your fridge and mentally try to put it in the new fridges and see how far you get. The cubic volume doesn't mean jack if it's not organized well.

Good luck, this process of configuring a kitchen is difficult!

I would be wary of getting an 18"W refrigerator. If you go to the specs on the Northland website, you will see that the refrigerator has an interior width of 13 1/2". There are a lot of things I have put in my fridge that are wider than that. I would look at a Northland in person before buying one. I've seen one installed, and though it was probably an old commercial version, it was really loud. I'm sure they've fixed that, but I'd just check to be sure.

Maybe look into getting a single drawer dishwasher (24"W) and stacking cabinet drawers on top of that. Then you could get a 24"W fridge and maybe make the leftover space into a 8"W door that opens into that dead space you have by the exhaust vent.

I had a 24-inch wide fridge, it was surprisingly roomy and I loved it. Not so sure about an 84-inch HIGH refrigerator. I wouldn't be able to reach the upper part without a stepladder.

Also, don't know where you are, but I'm not sure the Liebherr is available in the US :-(. The website doesn't indicate that it is.

I'm not familiar with Northland either, but my two cents on Liebherr is that on the built-in model, the fridge door is attached to an exterior panel by way of an additional hinge (so in fact there is this sort of shimmy-over affect when the door is opened and looks somewhat clumsy hardware-wise. Though from the outside looks just fine. If you look closely on the Liebherr site you can see how the panel and fridge door are actually two separate (moving) pieces. If you don't mind the stainless, I'd opt for the free-standing model.

I've recommended the use of Liebherrs for a few clients where the SubZeros were cost prohibitive (cost savings of nearly $2000 /-) and they've been very happy with them.

I think the counter space gained by the Northland is worth the extra expense but have no experience with the brand.

I would also flip the positions of the dishwasher and sink so that you gain a longer stretch of space. If you ever want to roll out dough or assemble a lot of food at once you don't want the sink right in the middle. Make sure your dishwasher can handle pots and pans too, 9" is tight to scrub a large pot.

hmmm...and why can't you remove those walls?

I recommend that you also take your inquiry, and your kitchen project to:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums

Gardenweb is a collection of forums on various home and other topics -- there is a kitchen forum, and a separate appliance forum -those people are very knowledgeable and appliance-obsessed! Run a search on "Liebherr" and "Northland" and some good info will likely pop up--that is where I first heard of a Liebhrre, and that is the fridge we will be buying (the 30" freestanding). And the collective knowledge residing at the Kitchen forum is really amazing. I have learned so much, and so have many others. This is not a paid advertisement, really. Good luck.

I just purchased my 24in Liebherr CS1351 with ice maker for $2695 at Krups on 18th street 212243 5787... I am very excited. It will arrive with my cute 24 in Bertazonni stove next week. Stuart at Krups was very helpful.

I had the narrow Northland in my previous house. The only reason we bought it was because of the tight space. It was worth the extra $$ in order to get our kitchen to work space wise but other than that it didn't have any features I was wowed with. The door on the model I had did have the option of replaceable panels. So- we used maple to match the rest of the kitchen- this was nice. The Northland was slightly noisy, interior space was great ( all the motor is housed up top). We had a few repairs to the icemaker in th beginning and the freezer door never seemed quite squared up to my eye. It is made in the USA which is kind of cool. I believe it took 6 weeks when we ordered it. Good Luck!

You could also get this 24" LG for $600 and spend the extra $2,000 on groceries It's not as tall as the Liebherr amd gives up a couple cubic feet of refrigerator space but the freezer compartment is very nicely done and I think it's quite stylish.
http://www.homeclick.com/web/catalog/product_detail.aspx?pid=27885

OMG, are you going to end up with a dead corner? It kills me to see a 2x2x3 space lost in a space that tiny. In a space that small, you should see if you can get a half round or some corner access cabinet (did a Magic Corner from Europe for my mom's kitchen--built like a Mercedes). She has a drawer above it. Let me know if you want more info.

OT, but if your stove is in a corner you'll want a backsplash that wraps around. Otherwise the side wall will get filthy.

I agree with reb that the door mechanism on the Liebherr built-in seems flimsy. I would go with the freestanding one if you go this route.

This is a very similar layout to the kitchen in my first apartment in Austin. The dead corner next to the stove housed the water heater for the apartment. If you don't have something like that in that corner, you should switch the positions of the frig and cooktop/oven. Also, the wall across from where the frig is now doesn't have anything on it and you could put in very shallow shelves and/or countertop there.

I have a 10 year old Northland....have only had to replace Thermostat...otherwise no repair issues. Only challenge is finding a shop in NYC to repair it....I did not have a good experience with Summit Appliance, but Combine Refrigeration did a great job.

Northland is a high-end commercial grade refrigerator on par with Sub Zero. All Northland refrigerators are strictly custom-built and built-ins. I just bought the Northland 24" refrigerator also because space was a premium in my small galley kitchen; It allowed me a bit more counter space. Also, since the compressor/motor is housed above the refrigerator, valuable space inside the refrigerator is reclaimed. Although it is only 24" wide, it is tall and full-counter depth, making it the same capacity as a regular, clunky refrigerator. I originally wanted to get the 24" Liebherr stand alone, which is substantially cheaper, but I just wasn't happy with the freezer drawers - I was never going to get a full-sized pizza box in there, nor a big item like a frozen turkey. This item is new, so I can't comment on performance/reliability as of yet, but it looks and feels like a sleek submarine.

I'm planning a kitchen remodel, also tight space. We've decided to have a 30" Thermador Fresh Food Column (refrigerator) and a 24" Summit under counter freezer (SCFF55). I just found out about a 30" Northland, which appears to have a larger capacity at about $1000 less than the Thermador. I'm interested in the noise level of the Northland and the experience of 37RubyDog on the Summit freezer.

How noisy was the Northland vs. any old stand-alone fridge?

How old was the Summit freezer and what were you unhappy with?